If you haven’t seen the show, every Thursday we will have the opportunity to describe what happened to Gérard and Cédric and to revisit with them the highlights and unseen moments of the broadcast.
In this first leg of Peking Express 3, the ten teams had to travel over 357 kilometers to reach Tiradentes from Rio de Janeiro. The race started at the foot of the Corcovado, the statue that overlooks the Brazilian bay, an impressive moment that already amazed the two contestants from Nice. “It’s a fantastic view. It’s seven in the morning, the monument is closed to the public, so we can enjoy this wonderful landscape formed by the rocks in the water as we can see in Asia,” Gérard recounts. It was then time for Stéphane Rotenberg, the host, to signal the start of the race after revealing the contestants’ route. Gérard remembers: “Cédric and I looked at each other, assessed the strength of our opponents. We were wrong sometimes, though (laughs). And when Stéphane announced the course, we set ourselves three goals. First, not to be eliminated after three days, then to last a month, and finally, to make it to Macchu Picchu.”
Barely any time to recover from their emotions, they had to head to Mount Urca to retrieve one of the ten balloons that allowed access to the immunity challenge at Maracana. But on the descent from Corcovado, disaster struck. The “over-motivated” father went down very (too) quickly to find a car in one of the parking lots and lost his son, who was slower than him. Cédric still laughs about it: “We didn’t understand each other; I thought we were meeting at the start of the descent, but he went down to the first parking lot. Anyway, this experience taught us one thing: in these physical challenges, you need to take your time because those last on the road get the cars first when they come down.”
Eventually, they found a police car to get down to Sugarloaf Mountain. A “very difficult climb” awaited them which turned out to be fruitless since the rugby friends grabbed the first balloon. Not to mention, the small family had woken up at three in the morning and hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since the previous day. So, nine balloons were left to find, four of which were on Ipanema Beach. That’s where our two contestants from Nice headed because “there’s a better chance of getting one even though it’s the furthest spot from Maracana.” A wise choice as they reached “second on the edge of the stadium but the driver got it wrong, so we had to do half the tour on foot.” They eventually secured the fifth and last qualifying spot for the immunity challenge, a penalty shootout on the mythical field, the day after attending the Flamengo-Fluminense derby.
After a night’s sleep at a local’s home, “found within fifteen minutes and who served us alcohol, which I do not drink, but I thought it was water and lemon,” Cédric explains, they participated in the immunity challenge but failed on their fourth attempt (after three successes) facing the rugby players who handed them a black envelope meaning a detour through Petrópolis. The two contestants from Nice kept their confidence and headed towards the second city they had to cross after Rio, looking for a baroness who would announce the rest of the route. Gérard still remembers that hellish city: “It’s a huge roundabout, which means that if you miss the exit, you have to go all the way around, and that was our case.”
The new envelope retrieved after an unsuccessful quest for food by Cédric from the French-speaking baroness, and they hit the road to Tiradentes, the finish line of the first leg. A journey that went smoothly, with each overtaking and then re-overtaking before they had to stop at 5 p.m. when the beacon indicating the end of the day rang. They had to sleep with the young ladies from Perpignan in a field since it was impossible to be accommodated in a villa. The son recounts: “They asked us to surround them to protect them. Nothing happened (laughs) especially since my girlfriend would not have appreciated it. But they are super nice girls. We had a good night.” Gérard adds: “This kind of help in the first stage allows you to bond with other contestants. It marks the rest of the adventure. But, that’s also Peking, knowing how to be there for others.”
At seven the next morning, it was time to depart, everyone on their own. And already, they arrived at Tiradentes. A car dropped the two contestants from Nice at the bottom of a slope a hundred meters from the flag and Stéphane Rotenberg. An ultimate nightmarish climb for Cédric: “I was exhausted. But I had to go all the way.”
Convinced they were first, they actually finished third in this stage, extremely taxing for their bodies. Despite this, they felt “happy and disappointed” at the same time because it was their first time hitchhiking. They still think “they could have won the stage if they hadn’t lost an hour on the side of the highway waiting for a car instead of going into town.”
Gérard regrets watching the show simply “the editing that gave more room to the race than to relations with the locals, especially since the emotional farewell of Harold and Yasmin to the two eliminated, Karine and Guillaume, wasn’t shown.”
The next step will lead them to Diamantina, and it should be exciting.
Photo credits: M6/Christophe Geral
